


low lays the devil in me

by sylvianorth



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Blood, Gore, M/M, Ravagers being not very nice, References to child murder, Revenge, Torture, Vigilantism, Violence, past references to slavery, violence as foreplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 06:50:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12699609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylvianorth/pseuds/sylvianorth
Summary: Yondu’s favorite part is at the very beginning before they realize what’s happening.





	low lays the devil in me

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song “Low Lays the Devil” by The Veils.

Yondu’s favorite part is at the very beginning before they realize what's happening.

Most of the families have guards. This one does, but the arrow makes quick work of them, whizzing crimson and leaving neat little holes in their chests and guts and skulls. One of them comes towards them and Kraglin puts his knife in his eye, but Yondu puts a hand out and says, “Save your energy, Krag” and Kraglin nods, wipes off the knife, puts it back.

He can feel the excitement radiate off Kraglin’s body next to him, hot and barely contained. He rolls on the balls of his feet and grins every time the arrow cuts through someone with a crack as they head up the stone walkway.

It’s always just the two of them on these adventures.

What they do is: Kraglin knocks on the door and Yondu steps off to the side, out of sight. When someone answers, Kraglin makes small talk. One of the many, many qualities about his First Mate that Yondu loves is how unassuming Kraglin can make himself look and how easily he can slip into that safe, sweet persona, the one that makes others drop their guard.

This time, it's the wife. She pokes her head out and gives Kraglin a bored look. She has no idea what's in store and it sends a thrill down Yondu's spine and lips curl upwards. Kraglin puts on that dopey smile and says, “sorry to bother you, miss, but my buddy and me was just in the neighborhood and we’s wondering if you’ve heard about the Church of Universal Truth? If you could spare a minute, I think you’d find it real interesting.”

She turns her nose up at him, the ugly snobbery still present after all these years. “We’re not interested –” and before she can get anything else out, Yondu steps into her field of vision and grins at her. She squints at him before her eyes widen in realization and then horror as he and Kraglin shove their way in.

This is when the fun starts.

The arrow cuts through her thighs and knocks her down. The husband puts up a fight but he’s useless against the combination of the arrow and the punch Yondu delivers right to his nose.

Kraglin hums the theme song to some idiot show he’s been hooked on lately as they tie them up. The husband is begging already, offering them units or jewels or ships or whatever they want. The wife is stoic, staring them in the face as Kraglin shoves a dirty rag in her mouth.

Yondu’s glad they don’t have kids. The last family had kids. There were two and they hid in the closet. Yondu put the arrow through one and then Kraglin got his face up real close to the second one before snapping his teeth and yelling “Get the fuck outta here!” in his face. The kid ran, tears streaming down his face and howling out the door. They’d laughed over it, but overall, kids were more trouble than they were worth when it came to this business.

Jak and Meera were no trouble at all.

“You’ve really changed the place since I was here last, Jak,” Yondu says, nodding approvingly. He and Kraglin are wandering around the downstairs of the mansion. The holo screens are bigger than they were years ago and they’ve gotten new furniture. White furniture.

All the blood is gonna be a damn shame, Yondu thinks.

Kraglin pilfers himself a snack from the kitchen while Yondu takes stock of their new friends. Meera is as beautiful as he remembers with her high cheekbones and sharp jawline. Under different circumstances, Yondu would probably ask her for a tumble or two. As it stands, he positions her so that she and her husband are face to face so they’ll be able to see exactly what’s happening to each other.

Kraglin returns with a bowl of something, still humming, and great, now Yondu’s got the damn song stuck in his head. Kraglin slurps loudly and informs the pair, “You’re almost out of yajhori juice.” Then he chuckles and adds, “Guess that don’t matter much now, huh?”

Yondu crouches so that he’s right at eye level with Jak and he touches the yaka arrow thoughtfully. “You probably know why we’re here, don’t you?”

Jak sniffs. “Please, please, we didn’t – ” and Yondu’s heard all the excuses before so he pops him a good one, right in the mouth. He’s heard every excuse there is: _they’re sorry, they didn’t know it was wrong, it’s their culture, they treated him nicely, if they didn’t take him, someone worse would have_. Yondu can handle it, but he’d like a little variety.

Jak goes from excuses back to begging real quick when Yondu starts on him. Kraglin slurps his bowl and laughs while Yondu cuts off each of Jak’s fingers on his right hand and rips out a few of his teeth. They’re nice teeth. He could make a necklace out of them maybe. Kraglin might like that.

“Quit whining,” Yondu says as he starts flaying the skin off Jak’s left hand. “This’ll all be over soon.”

Opposite them, Kraglin holds Meera’s head straight to make her watch, grinning his crooked metal smile. Yondu took the dirty rag out of her mouth. He likes the sounds and she’s a screamer. All of her stoicism is gone; she’s begging just like her husband.

It disgusts Yondu a bit. He wishes they’d have a little dignity.

He never begged. Not once, not even when he was in the slave pen, in a cage that was too small to sit down in with a collar around his neck, not when he was whipped, not when he was starved for refusing orders.

They leave Jak for a bit and move onto Meera, cutting off her nose and ears and skinning her fingers and shoulders. There’s a lot of blood and a lot of noise. Yondu loves watching Kraglin as he expertly carves through flesh and bone, gore spotting his face, hands and clothes, smiling the entire time. He figures there’s no one in the galaxy as skilled with a knife as his First Mate.

Back and forth they go, working on one and making the other watch, until Yondu shoves the arrow through Jak’s remaining eye and tells Kraglin to finish up, so Kraglin cuts Meera’s throat and tosses the body aside.

“That’s my boy,” Yondu says, and they’re on each other in an instant, hands groping and teeth clacking together as they kiss, Yondu fumbling with the zipper on Kraglin’s bloodstained jumpsuit. Sometimes they make it to the bedroom (and Yondu loves that, loves fucking in the beautiful master suites and messing their nice sheets with his sweat and come) but more often than not, they end up fucking next to the warm bodies with their vacant eyes.

He throws Kraglin’s legs over his shoulders as he drives into him, leaning forward to kiss him and biting hard on his lower lip. Kraglin’s got that blissed out grin on his face, eyes closed as he braces his hands against the couch, pushing back to get more. Yondu brings Kraglin off with his hand and then pulls out to come on his stomach.

Kraglin chuckles and wipes his brow with the back of his hand. “Come here,” he murmurs, pulling Yondu close, tucking Yondu’s head under his chin. He always holds him after, smoothing thin fingers along Yondu’s neck and shoulders, rubbing stiff muscles. “They shouldnta did that to you,” he mutters, angry. He’s always angry after, mouth pinched and nostrils flaring and he holds Yondu close like he can make it all go away. Yondu smiles and grabs the back of his head to pull him in for a kiss, surprisingly tender.

“It’s in the past now, Krag,” he murmurs. It’s not, not really. Not when he has the scars and the nightmares and lost, lonely years. But he doesn’t need to vocalize that for Kraglin to know it. Kraglin is frustratingly perceptive when he chooses to be.

They lay on the floor together, Kraglin petting Yondu’s head and Yondu feeling Kraglin’s warm skin and steadily rising and falling chest under his ear and he closes his eyes.

Yondu wakes around an hour later, a pillow under his head where Kraglin’s bony chest had been and a blanket draped over him, tucked under his chin. Jak and Meera’s eyes are still open, wide with fear and starting to fog over and he smiles as he wanders around the mansion, still naked.

Kraglin is in the master suite. He’s also naked and rummaging around in a chest of drawers. There’s a jewelry box open on the bed, its contents spilling out and already rifled through.

“Look what I found,” Kraglin says, holding up a container of pills and rattling them. “Figure we can either sell ‘em or use ‘em ourselves. I already got some good shit over there,” and he jerks his chin towards the pile on the bed.

Yondu watches the way Kraglin’s spine curves when he bends over, the way all his knobby vertebrae stick out. He’s like a cat, easy in his bones, and Yondu sees the way he scratches at his own branding scar on the back of his neck and stands up straight and says, “Found you something, too.”

It’s a glass figure, some kind of bird with bright green and purple feathers. The talons are sharp. Yondu holds it delicately between his rough fingers and smiles.

They get dressed and load their pockets and bags with everything they can carry. Yondu puts the bird inside his coat and collects the teeth from where they’re scattered on the floor and makes sure to stomp viciously on Jak’s head on the way out, relishing in the crunch under his foot.

Satisfied, he pulls Kraglin in close and gives him a squeeze on the hip, letting the bone dig into his palm.

“How many more do we got?”

“Three, by my guess.”

“Then we better get moving then, huh?”


End file.
